The focus of this blog is on the wonders of government-run health-care everywhere but I also note the damage done to private medicine by a legal system that supports predatory litigation.

The long-established socialized medicine systems in Britain and Australia are a particularly relevant warning about where such systems end up.

Posts by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

British GPs 'visit just one in 50 sick patients out of hours' in some areas

Major variations in the quality of out of hours care across the country mean that in the best areas one in four patients will receive a home visit if they call for a doctor at night or over weekends. But elsewhere the proportion is much lower, according to the report by the Primary Care Foundation.

The study, which compares the quality of health services provided by all of England's Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), has disclosed “gaping holes” in the out-of-hours provision. It shows huge variations in the quality of care across the country, although none of the trusts is named. The number of patients receiving home visits varied from 25 per cent in one PCT to 2 per cent in another, the report said. Meanwhile, the number of patients given only a telephone diagnosis also varied between 20 and 70 per cent.

The study also shows that many PCTs are failing to respond quickly enough to urgent calls. Government targets say a GP should visit, or at least telephone within 20 minutes, all patients whose cases are designated urgent. But just two PCTs met this target out of 84 surveyed. The worst achieved the target in only a third of cases. The study also showed large variations in the amount spent on out-of-hours services between PCTs, which ranged from £16 and £3 per person.

An investigation by the Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that in the worst areas, there is just one GP covering as many as 650,000 people. Just four GPs are on duty overnight for the 1.1m people living in east, north and west Hertfordshire, while 11 doctors are available to a similar number of people living in east, north and south Birmingham and south Staffordshire.

Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients' Association, called gaps in out of hours provision “scandalous.” "It is such a vital service because it can be very frightening for somebody to get ill in the night, knowing that there's nobody at their doctor's surgery,” she said. "We know from our helpline that this is a national problem. The situation is appalling and it needs to be resolved.”

If enough States get this through, it would destroy the funding for Obamacare -- because Obamacare needs mandated payments to get the money to pay its costs

The Virginia State Senate voted today 23-17 to add a provision to the Virginia State Code that would exempt Virginians from being forced by the federal government to participate in any health care plan. Furthermore, the provision exempts Virginians from having to pay a fine or fee for not participating.

The text of the legislation sponsored by Jill Holtzman Vogel reads as follows:

No resident of this Commonwealth, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or through his employer, or a plan sponsored by the Commonwealth or the federal government, shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage. No provision of this title shall render a resident of this Commonwealth liable for any penalty, assessment, fee, or fine as a result of his failure to procure or obtain health insurance coverage.

This is a big win for Virginians, the 10th Amendment, and liberty. The fight is not over though. I highlight the word “individual” above because it worries me. Does this mean the federal government can mandate family coverage?

Hopefully this ambiguity will be remedied as the bill moves further along in the legislative process.

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

This blog gives a lot of attention to events in Australia and Britain -- places where there already exist systems similar to the one most likely to befall the USA if the Democrats get their way -- "Free" medical care supposedly available to all through government hospitals but with a competing private sector as well. The Canadian system is considered too Soviet to provide a likely model for the USA

TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts concern the very instructive state of socialized medicine in Australia. Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has a system of State governments which have substantial independence from the central (Federal) government and it is they who are mainly responsible for "free" health services. It may therefore be useful to some for me to note the standard abbreviations for the States concerned: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

Conservatives do NOT object to helping the poor. Government welfare legislation in aid of the poor was in fact first introduced by conservatives -- Bismarck and Disraeli in the 19th century. What conservatives want is for the help to be delivered in a sane manner. And anyone who thinks that government bureaucracies can run hospitals well is completely out of touch with reality.

One of the oldest "free" public hospital systems in the world is that in the Australian State where I live: Queensland. It dates from 1944 (Britain's NHS began in 1948). So its advanced state of decay reveals well where the slow cancer of bureaucracy ends up. It now has three "administrative" employees for every medical employee. All those clerks are really good at curing people, I guess! Frequent bulletins on the flailing but ineffectual attempts to "fix" the system will appear here -- as well as bulletins on the dreadful things it does to patients and the long waits they endure.

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here